WEST Ham United are in the hands of new owners, who moved in order to stop the club from going bust.

Today, control rests with a consortium of firms all owed money by Hansa, the previous owner of the Upton Park outfit.

It has told fans it wants to sell the club as quickly as it can in order to recoup some of the cash it is owed by Hansa.

The consortium is called CB Holdings and it takes the place of the now defunct Hansa.

The deal was announced on Monday, to the surprise of many.

It means the future of West Ham United is secure, for now.

It also means the current board, including chairman Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, and vice-chairman Asgeir Fridgeirsson are out.

New owner CB Holdings is 70 per cent owned by Icelandic bank Straumur.

The bank was itself bailed out by the Icelandic government in March, when it collapsed under the weight of bad debt it acquired during the credit bubble.

It was the last of the country’s four major banks to collapse during the credit crunch.

In October last year, the country of Iceland itself was declared effectively bust too.

The deal means that Icelandic taxpayers today part own West Ham.

A spokesman for Straumur bank has told fans it has no ambitions to own the club for long.

The asking price is reported to be about £150m. A sale could take up to three years to happen.

The purchase means the club do not face the possibility of a points deduction, which it would have done if it was forced to enter bankruptcy.

That was a possibility under Gudmundsson’s reign because his business went bust, a result of the credit crash.

A Straumur spokesman said: “We had to do this to protect the club from financial problems because of Hansa’s problems.

“We did not have any other option,” he added.